Stephen Belber¬'s Play, TAPE, To Receive NYC Revival 9/9-24

Knife Edge Productions, in association with Swinestars Productions, will present a revival of Stephen Belber's acclaimed play, Tape, directed by Sam Helfrich. Tape runs from September 9 - 24, 2011 in a limited engagement at the June Havoc Theatre in the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex, located at 312 West 36th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in New York City. Previews begin September 9 for a September 13 opening.

Performances are Wednesdays - Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Special opening night performance on Tuesday, September 13 at 7pm. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.TapeNYC.com or by calling 1-866-811-4111. A post-show talk back with Stephen Belber will follow the Wednesday, September 14 performance. Train access via the A, C, E, 1, 2 or 3 to 34th Street. For more information on the show visit www.TapeNYC.com.

Jon, an aspiring filmmaker on the verge of hitting it big, hooks up for the weekend with his best friend from high school, Vince, a volunteer fireman who makes his money selling dope. The old friends meet up at a Motel 6 in Lansing, Michigan, where Jon's new film is being screened at a film festival, but Vince has more than one reason to make his way all the way to Lansing: his old high school girlfriend, Amy, also lives there. Over the course of a pulsating, tension-filled evening, Vince gets Jon to reveal a dark secret from their past which continues to haunt both of the men, and when Amy eventually joins them, their shared past finally catches up with all three of them, setting off a wildly unpredictable chain of events with consequences both laughable and tragic. Beneath its suspenseful, high stakes surface, Tape examines questions of motive, memory, truth and perception, and asks us whether we can ever escape those formative high school years.

The New Yorker called the 2002 World Premiere of Tape "terrific," The New York Post deemed the play "fascinating and entertaining," and The Wall Street Journal wrote, "when it comes to reminding us just why we leave our homes on a cold winter's night and seek the joys of a live theatrical performance, playwright Stephen Belber has the big guys beat."

Sam Helfrich has directed theater and opera at companies including Glimmerglass Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Boston, Berkshire Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Wolf Trap Opera and Boston Baroque Orchestra, among others. His recent productions include Cosi fan tutte at Delaware Valley Opera, The Turn of the Screw at Boston Lyric Opera, Philip Glass' Orphée at Portland Opera and Glimmerglass Opera, The Consul at Glimmerglass, Louise and Amistad at Spoleto Festival/USA, and Der Freischutz, Semele and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at Opera Boston. Helfrich's theater projects have included Len Jenkins' Dark Ride and Eric Overmyer's In a Pig's Valise at Bard College and a New York production of Stephen Belber's Transparency of Val. Helfrich holds a BA in Russian literature and an MFA in theater arts, both from Columbia University.

The cast includes Don DiPaolo (Go Go Killers at Sage Theater, The Seagull with Curan Rep, Shopping and F***king with Rude Monkey Theatre Group), Neil Holland (Red Light Winter at Theatre 54, Stephen Adly Guirgis's Untitled/Ass Play with LAByrinth Theatre Company, The Interrogation at TBG Theatre) and Therese Plaehn (Paradise Lost with A.R.T., The Winter's Tale with A.R.T./MXAT, Dancing at Lughnasa with the Gallery Players).

The creative team consists of Laura Jellinek (Set Design), Kate Ashton (Lighting Design), Nancy Leary (Costume Design) and Heather Arnson (Stage Manager). Knife Edge Productions was formed in 2008 by Neil Holland and Sonya Tsuchigane, graduates of the prestigious William Esper Studio in NYC. The company's inaugural production was Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter. In 2009, Neil teamed up with fellow Esper alum Don DiPaolo after discovering that they both were passionate about producing a revival of Stephen Belber's Tape. From there, they began to embark on 2-year journey that has brought them to the September 2011 revival of the play.